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Author: Macmillan, Ross

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1.	Duke, Naomi Macmillan, Ross
1.	Is Educational Attainment a Cause of Better Health? A Test of Conventional Wisdom Presented: Budapest, Hungary, European Population Conference, June 2014 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: European Association for Population Studies (EAPS) Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Modeling, Fixed Effects Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Research routinely finds a strong association between educational attainment and better health. The conventional interpretation of this association is causal, premised on basic ideas of education and human capital enhancement. An alternative perspective views educational attainment as somewhat endogenous given cognitive and non-cognitive skills that are formed early in the life course. By implication, this perspective would view the association between educational attainment and health as spurious. Using data from the NLSY97 and dynamic measures of both educational attainment and self-rated health, we evaluate these two perspectives. Specifically, we fit conventional ordinary least squares and maximum likelihood, fixed effects regression models where the latter can control for time-stable, unmeasured heterogeneity such as cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Contrary to conventional wisdom, results provide little support for the human capital and causation interpretation. Specifically, once controlling for unmeasured heterogeneity, the effects of education are either eliminated or reduced such that they would be deemed trivial to small. These conclusions are reinforced when we include a set of time-varying covariates that are robust predictors of health and when we examine such effects for six race-sex subgroups. We conclude by discussing the implications for future research on socioeconomic stratification and health.
	Bibliography Citation Duke, Naomi and Ross Macmillan. "Is Educational Attainment a Cause of Better Health? A Test of Conventional Wisdom." Presented: Budapest, Hungary, European Population Conference, June 2014.

2.	Duke, Naomi Macmillan, Ross
2.	Schooling, Skills, and Self-rated Health: A Test of Conventional Wisdom on the Relationship between Educational Attainment and Health Sociology of Education 89,3 (July 2016): 171-206. Also: http://soe.sagepub.com/content/89/3/171 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; Educational Attainment; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Heterogeneity; Noncognitive Skills Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Education is a key sociological variable in the explanation of health and health disparities. Conventional wisdom emphasizes a life course--human capital perspective with expectations of causal effects that are quasi-linear, large in magnitude for high levels of educational attainment, and reasonably robust in the face of measured and unmeasured explanatory factors. We challenge this wisdom by offering an alternative theoretical account and an empirical investigation organized around the role of measured and unmeasured cognitive and noncognitive skills as confounders in the association between educational attainment and health. Based on longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 spanning mid-adolescence through early adulthood, results indicate that (1) effects of educational attainment are vulnerable to issues of omitted variable bias, (2) measured indicators of cognitive and noncognitive skills account for a significant proportion of the traditionally observed effect of educational attainment, (3) such skills have effects larger than that of even the highest levels of educational attainment when appropriate controls for unmeasured heterogeneity are incorporated, and (4) models that most stringently control for such time-stable abilities show little evidence of a substantive association between educational attainment and health.
	Bibliography Citation Duke, Naomi and Ross Macmillan. "Schooling, Skills, and Self-rated Health: A Test of Conventional Wisdom on the Relationship between Educational Attainment and Health." Sociology of Education 89,3 (July 2016): 171-206.

3.	Macmillan, Ross
3.	Social Change in Structures of the Life Course: Examining Latent Pathways in the Transition to Adulthood, 1966 to 2010 Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010 Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97, Young Men, Young Women Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Life Course; Modeling, Growth Curve/Latent Trajectory Analysis; Transition, Adulthood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Recent attention to the transition to adulthood has focused on perceived changes to the structure of such transitions with respect to the order and timing of role transitions and the degree to which these reflect large scale changes in culture and economy. At the heart of such research is emergent debates about the nature of the life course and the degree of ‘standardization,’ ‘individualization’ or ‘differentiation’ over time. To extend theory and research, this paper specifies a structural perspective for both heterogeneity in pathways into adulthood and their connection to broad processes of social change and elaborates latent class techniques to longitudinal data to formally map out heterogeneity in pathways into adulthood in terms of interlocked, probabilistic pathways through social roles in the late teens and 20s. We also examine comparable cohorts of men and women drawn from three national, longitudinal samples of the National Longitudinal Surveys that span a period of forty years, 1966-2005, the exact period that researchers suggest significant social change in structures of the life course. In doing so, this research is unique in mapping out the broad character of the life course in terms of multidimensional, dynamic pathways and formally examines how these might have changed over time.
	Bibliography Citation Macmillan, Ross. "Social Change in Structures of the Life Course: Examining Latent Pathways in the Transition to Adulthood, 1966 to 2010." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010.

4.	Macmillan, Ross Billari, Francesco Furstenberg, Frank
4.	Stability and Change in the Transition to Adulthood: A Latent Structure Analysis of Three Generations in the National Longitudinal Surveys Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: Population Association of America Keyword(s): Life Course; Modeling, Growth Curve/Latent Trajectory Analysis; Transition, Adulthood Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. A key issue in the demography of the life course is the transition to adulthood in the latter quarter of the 20th Century. Viewed as an increasingly problematic enterprise, researchers point to modal shifts in the timing of roles, diminished or delayed role attainments, and the uncoupling of roles over time among recent generations. Using latent structure approaches, we model the multidimensional, longitudinal processes of role transitions across three generations of Americans drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys (1966-2008). In formally modelling the longitudinal structure of the transition to adulthood, we pay explicit attention to within-group and between-group heterogeneity to map continuity and change over time. Results reveal the enduring importance of institutional contexts in the shaping of pathways, the important role of social and economic resources in determining pathways into adulthood, and the important connection between the two in shaping broad patterns of inequality through the life course.
	Bibliography Citation Macmillan, Ross, Francesco Billari and Frank Furstenberg. "Stability and Change in the Transition to Adulthood: A Latent Structure Analysis of Three Generations in the National Longitudinal Surveys." Presented: San Francisco CA, Population Association of America Meetings, May 2012.

5.	Macmillan, Ross Copher, Ronda
5.	Families in the Life Course: Interdependency of Roles, Role Configurations, and Pathways Journal of Marriage and Family 67,4 (November 2005): 858-879. Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00180.x/abstract Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: National Council on Family Relations Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing; Family Studies; Life Course; Modeling; Parenthood Families are central in the unfolding life course. They have both internal and external dynamics that reflect and characterize the modern life span, and a life course perspective has particular utility for understanding the role and implications of families for individuals and society. The purpose of this paper is 3-fold. First, we offer a family life course perspective that delineates core concepts of roles, role configurations, and pathways, specifies the links between them, and highlights the importance of linked lives and structural context. Second, we elaborate a latent class approach for modeling the multilayered dynamic interdependencies that characterize modern family life. Third, we provide an empirical example by considering the timing of childbearing, teen parenthood, and its place in the transition to adulthood using women's data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 2,191). We conclude by discussing further avenues of family research that are enhanced with a life course approach and complementary latent structure methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
	Bibliography Citation Macmillan, Ross and Ronda Copher. "Families in the Life Course: Interdependency of Roles, Role Configurations, and Pathways." Journal of Marriage and Family 67,4 (November 2005): 858-879.

6.	Macmillan, Ross McMorris, Barbara J. Kruttschnitt, Candace
6.	Linked Lives: Stability and Change in Maternal Circumstances and Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior in Children Child Development 75,1 (January/February 2004): 205-220. Also: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00664.x/abstract Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: Blackwell Publishing, Inc. => Wiley Online Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Children, Adjustment Problems; Family Influences; Life Course; Modeling, Growth Curve/Latent Trajectory Analysis; Poverty Drawing on the notion of linked lives, this study examined the effects of stability and change in maternal circumstance on developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior in children 4 to 7 years of age. Using data from a national sample of young mothers and growth curve analysis, the study demonstrated that early maternal circumstances influences early antisocial behavior, whereas stability and change in these circumstances both exacerbate and ameliorate behavior problems. Of particular note, meaningful escape from poverty attenuates antisocial behavior whereas persistence in poverty or long-term movement into poverty intensifies such problems. These findings highlight the importance of structural context for parenting practices and the need to consider child development in light of dynamic and changing life-course fortunes of parents.
	Bibliography Citation Macmillan, Ross, Barbara J. McMorris and Candace Kruttschnitt. "Linked Lives: Stability and Change in Maternal Circumstances and Trajectories of Antisocial Behavior in Children." Child Development 75,1 (January/February 2004): 205-220.

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